The Quote Mine Project

Or, Lies, Damned Lies and Quote
Mines

"Sudden Appearance and Stasis"

Quote #14

"Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for
Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true
students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored
account of evolution by natural selection we view our data
as so bad that we almost never see the very process we
profess to study. ...The history of most fossil species
includes tow [sic] features particularly
inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species
exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth.
They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as
when they disappear; morphological change I [sic]
usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In
any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the
steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at
once and 'fully formed.'" (Gould, Stephen J. The
Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182)

Snipped in the ellipsis is:

"We believe that Huxley was right in his warning. The
modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change.
In fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield
exactly what we see in the fossil record. It is gradualism
we should reject, not Darwinism."

Following this passage is:

"Evolution proceeds in two major modes. In the first,
phyletic transformation, an entire population changes from
one state to another. .... The second mode, speciation,
replenishes the earth. New species branch off from a
persisting parental stock.

"Darwin, to be sure, acknowledged and discussed the
process of speciation. But he cast his discussion of
evolutionary change almost totally in the mold of phyletic
transformation. In this context, the phenomenon of stasis
and sudden appearance could hardly be attributed to
anything but imperfection of the record; for if new species
arise by transformation of entire ancestral populations,
and if we almost never see the transformation (because
species are essentially static through their range), then
our record must be hopelessly incomplete.

"Eldredge and I believe that speciation is responsible
for almost all evolutionary change. Moreover, the way in
which it occurs virtually guarantees that sudden appearance
and stasis shall dominate the fossil record." to p183.

Quote #15

"Paleontologists are traditionally famous (or infamous)
for reconstructing whole animals from the debris of death.
Mostly they cheat. ...If any event in life's history
resembles man's creation myths, it is this sudden
diversification of marine life when multicellular organisms
took over as the dominant actors in ecology and evolution.
Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still
dazzles us and stands as a major biological revolution on a
par with the invention of self-replication and the origin
of the eukaryotic cell. The animal phyla emerged out of the
Precambrian mists with most of the attributes of their
modern descendants." (Bengtson, Stefan, "The Solution to a
Jigsaw Puzzle," Nature, vol. 345 (June 28,
1990), pp. 765-766)

This is from an article that summarizes the finding of a
peer-reviewed paper elsewhere in the issue, which reports
on the discovery of complete specimens of halkieriids, a
now extinct taxon from the Early Cambrian period:

Palaeontologists are traditionally
famous (or infamous) for reconstructing whole animals from
the debris of death. Mostly they cheat. Even extinct
beasts such as dinosaur have scores of living relatives
(birds, mammals, reptiles) that make reconstructions
'simply' a matter of competent comparative anatomy. But how
do you go about the job when there seem to be no close
living relatives on which to base the model? This is a
problem particularly when dealing with organisms that
derive from the 'Cambrian explosion'.

If any event in life's history
resembles man's creation myths, it is this sudden
diversification of marine life when multi-cellular
organisms took over as the dominant actors in ecology and
evolution. Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this
event still dazzles us and stands as a major biological
revolution on a par with the invention of self-replication
and the origin of the eukaryotic cell. The animal phyla
emerged out of the Precambrian mists with most of the
attributes of their modern descendants. But nature is
wasteful. Most species never give rise to anything, and
present-day phyla derive from a lucky minority. Many of the
not-so-lucky fossil species may also be comfortably
classified in these same living phyla, but it is a feature
of many Cambrian assemblages that they contain a large
proportion of forms that cannot be so treated.

We can see from the context that "cheating" is just a
case of making use of comparative anatomy. Since in most
cases soft tissue isn't preserved, it's not unreasonable to
make informed assumptions about the placement and size
muscles and such. But how does one reconstruct a creature
that has no living relatives?

It should also be emphasized that the writer states that
"If any event in life's history resembles man's
creation myths" (emphasis added). And obviously it's not
that much of a resemblance. These new "organisms took
over as the dominant actors in ecology and evolution"
(emphasis added). This wasn't creation from nothing,
otherwise there would be no organisms to take over
from.

- Jon (Augray) Barber

The paragraphs preceding above quote:

"An extraordinary discovery by Conway Morris and Peel,
described on page 802 of this issue, answers the prayers of
many palaeontologists. The authors report complete
specimens of halkieriids from 550-million-year-old Early
Cambrian rocks in northern Greenland.

Those unfamiliar with halkieriids may be excused. The
first fragment was unearthed in Bornholm in the Baltic area
in the 1960s, and it took some time before palaeontologists
realized that they were dealing with isolated dermal scales
(sclerites) of a previously unknown type of animal. There
are no halkieriids alive today; yet in their short time
they were highly successful and filled the Earth's
seas.

Palaeontologists are traditionally famous (or infamous)
for reconstructing whole animals from the debris of death.
Mostly they cheat.

The part snipped out :

Even extinct beasts such as dinosaurs have scores of
living relatives (birds, mammals, reptiles) that make
reconstructions 'simply' a matter of competent comparative
anatomy. But how do you go about the job when there seem to
be no close living relatives on which to base the model ?
This is a problem particularly when dealing with organisms
that derive from the 'Cambrian explosion'.

So the phrase 'mostly they cheat' refers to using living
relatives of fossil taxa to reconstruct them.

Back to the article:

If any event in life's history resembles man's creation
myths, it is this sudden diversification of marine life
when multicellular organisms took over as the dominant
actors in ecology and evolution. Baffling (and
embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still dazzles us and
stands as a major biological revolution on par with the
invention of self-replication and the origin of the
eukaryotic cell. The animal phyla emerged out of the
Pre-Cambrian mists with most of the attributes of their
modern descendants.

The next part snipped out :

But nature is wasteful. Most species never give rise to
anything, and present-day phyla derive from a lucky
minority. The not-so-lucky fossil species may also be
comfortably classified in these living phyla, but it is a
feature of many Cambrian assemblages that they contain a
large proportion of forms that cannot be so treated. In the
1970s, the realization started to grow that there poorly
understood forms may indicate a great diversity of
high-level taxa.

- Professor Weird

Quote #16

"Modern multicellular animals make their first
uncontested appearance in the fossil record some 570
million years ago - and with a bang, not a protracted
crescendo. This 'Cambrian explosion' marks the advent (at
least into direct evidence) of virtually all major groups
of modern animals - and all within the minuscule span,
geologically speaking, of a few million years." (Gould,
Stephen J., Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the
Nature of History, 1989, p. 23-24)

A short while later, in the same paragraph, he says:

"Our fossil record is almost exclusively the story of
hard parts. But most animals have none, and those that do
reveal very little about their anatomies in their outer
coverings (what could you infer about a clam from its shell
alone?). Hence, the rare soft-bodied faunas of the fossil
record are precious windows into the true range and
diversity of ancient life."

- John Wilkins

Quote #17

"The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than
joy. Nothing distressed him more than the Cambrian
explosion, the coincident appearance of almost all complex
organic designs..." (Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's
Thumb, 1980, p. 238-239)

Same page and paragraph:

"His opponents interpreted this event as the moment of
creation, for not a single trace of Precambrian life had
been discovered when Darwin wrote the Origin of
Species. (We now have an extensive record of
monerans from these early rocks, see essay 21)"

- John Wilkins

Quote #18

"The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the
rocks, with virtually no evidence of transition from their
ancestors." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case
for Evolution, 1983, p. 82)

Ironically, Futuyma immediately follows this with the
observation of an early example, by Gish, of quote mining.
A little later he says:

"The transitional forms that evolve so quickly, and in
such a small area, are very unlikely to be picked up in the
fossil record. Only when the newly evolved species extends
its range will it suddenly appear in the fossil record.
Eldredge and Gould have suggested, therefore, that the
fossil record should show stasis, or equilibrium, of
established species, punctuated occasionally by the
appearance of new forms. Hence, the fossil record would be
most inadequate exactly where we need it most -- at the
origin of major new groups of organisms." p. 83

Quote #20

"In spite of these examples, it remains true, as every
paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and
families, and that nearly all new categories above the
level of families, appear in the record suddenly and are
not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous
transitional sequences." (Simpson, George Gaylord, The
Major Features of Evolution, 1953, p. 360)

The two paragraphs above the one containing the mined
bit will help establish the context a bit better, I think.
Sorry for the length.

"The chances that the remains of an organism will be
buried, fossilized, preserved in the rock to our day, then
exposed on the surface of dry land and found by a
paleontologist before they disintegrate are extremely
small, practically infinitesimal. The discovery of a fossil
of a particular species, out of the thousands of millions
that have inhabited the earth, seems almost like a miracle
even to a paleontologist who has spent a good part of his
life performing the miracle. Certainly paleontologists have
found samples of an extremely small fraction, only, of the
earth's extinct species, and even for groups that are most
readily preserved and found as fossils they can never
expect to find more than a fraction.

"In view of these facts, the record already acquired is
amazingly good. It provides us with many detailed examples
of a great variety of evolutionary phenomena on lower and
intermediate levels and with rather abundant data that can
be used either by controlled extrapolation or on a
statistical sampling basis for inferences as to phenomena
on all levels up to the highest. Among the examples are
many in which, beyond the slightest doubt, a species or
genus has been gradually transformed into another. Such
gradual transformation is also fairly well exemplified for
subfamilies and occasionally for families, as the groups
are commonly ranked. Splitting and subsequent gradual
divergence of species is also exemplified, although not as
richly as phyletic transformation of species (no doubt
because splitting of species usually involves spatial
separation and paleontological samples are rarely adequate
in spatial distribution). Splitting and gradual divergence
of genera is exemplified very well and in a large variety
of organisms. Complete examples for subfamilies and
families are also known, but are less common.

"In spite of these examples, it
remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that
most new species, genera, and families and that
nearly all new categories above the level of families
appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by
known, gradual, completely continuous transitional
sequences. When paleontological collecting was still
in its infancy and no clear examples of transitional origin
had been found, most paleontologists were
anti-evolutionists. Darwin (1859) recognized the fact that
paleontology then seemed to provide evidence against rather
than for evolution in general or the gradual origin of
taxonomic characters in particular. Now we do have many
examples of transitional sequences. Almost all
paleontologists recognize that the discovery of a complete
transition is in any case unlikely. Most of them find it
logical, if not scientifically required, to assume that the
sudden appearance of a new systematic group is not evidence
for special creation or for saltation, but simply means
that a full transitional sequence more or less like those
that are known did occur and simply has not been found in
this instance."

- Mike Dunford

Quote #21

"The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence
of any record of any important branching is quite
phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly so, for
long periods, species seldom and genera never show
evolution into new species or genera but replacement or one
by another, and change is more or less abrupt." (Wesson,
R., Beyond Natural Selection, 1991, p. 45)

"The impression that many groups arise suddenly at about
the same time may be exaggerated by the system of
classification. As one traces different orders, such as
carnivores or ungulates, back to their earliest appearance,
one naturally finds that the ancestral forms differ less
than do their modern descendants. Similarly, it was
possible for the principal animal types, the phyla, to
diverge very rapidly, leaving no traces of intermediates,
because they were much simpler and less deeply separated
than their distant descendants. The differences, although
basic, were not yet deeply embedded.

"The gaps in the record are real,
however. The absence of any record of any important
branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static,
or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera
never show evolution into new species or genera but
replacement of one by another, and change is more or less
abrupt.

"This contradicts the Darwinian approach. Natural
selection -- and Lamarckian evolution by use and disuse --
would imply gradual, progressive change, with randomly
diverging lines of descent. This would make a great
irregular bush, not the branching ideal tree of life, much
less the record that we have, with big and little branches
suspended without junctions.

"Those who study the fossil record, dealing not with
equations of population genetics but with hard facts of the
past, have been most inclined to be skeptical of Darwin's
insistence on slow, more or less steady change. Such
paleontologists as Stephen J. Gould, Niles Eldredge, and
Steven M. Stanley have recently been in the vanguard of the
critics."

The original quote is accurate, forms a complete
paragraph, and seems to be discussing Punctuated
Equilibria, but at the end a reference is also given, to
page 307 of "The eukaryote genome in development and
evolution" (John, B., & Miklos, G. L. G. 1988. London:
Allen & Unwin).

In this latter book the section referred to discusses
the Cambrian explosion and the Burgess Shale!

Wesson seems to be confused about what he is talking
about in the paragraph quoted, and I'm not sure why I
should take the musings of a political scientist as
representative of current palaeontological thought.

- Jon (Augray) Barber and Mike Dunford

Quote #22

"All through the fossil record, groups - both large and
small - abruptly appear and disappear. ...The earliest
phase of rapid change usually is undiscovered, and must be
inferred by comparison with its probable relatives."
(Newell, N. D., Creation and Evolution: Myth or
Reality, 1984, p. 10)

This isn't on page 10. And the book doesn't have an
index. I guess it's time to plow through the whole
thing.

. . . And after reading the entire book, I can't find it
anywhere.

- Jon (Augray) Barber

Quote #23

"Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming
contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism ...
and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic
lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual
changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species
into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an
evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to
appear quite abruptly in the fossil record." (Mayr, E.
Our [sic] Long Argument: Charles Darwin
and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought,
1991, p. 138)

"During the synthesis it became clear that since new
evolutionary departures seem to take place almost
invariably in localized isolated populations, it is not
surprising that the fossil record does not reflect these
sequences."

- John Wilkins

The name of the book is really One Long
Argument.

- Mike Hopkins

Quote #24

"The record certainly did not reveal gradual
transformations of structure in the course of time. On the
contrary, it showed that species generally remained
constant throughout their history and were replaced quite
suddenly by significantly different forms. New types or
classes seemed to appear fully formed, with no sign of an
evolutionary trend by which they could have emerged from an
earlier type." (Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea,
1984, p. 187)

I only have the second edition, and this is on page
200f. But note what Bowler then says:

"Darwin devoted a chapter of the Origin to
explaining the "imperfection of the fossil record," arguing
that the fossils we discover represent only a tiny fraction
of the species that actually have lived. Many species, and
many whole episodes in evolution, will have left no fossils
at all, because they occurred in areas where conditions
were not suitable for fossilization. Apparently sudden
leaps in the development of life are thus illusions created
by gaps in the evidence available to us. Future discoveries
may help to fill in some of the gaps, but we can never hope
to build up a complete outline of the history of life."

- John Wilkins

Quote #25

"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what
geologists of Darwin's time, and geologists of the present
day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that
is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show
little or no change during their existence in the record,
then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always
clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were
actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other
words, biological improvement is hard to find." (Raup,
David M., "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,"
Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History,
vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)

"Now let me step back from the problem and very
generally discuss natural selection and what we know about
it. I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that
natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a
mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much
of it predating genetics, which shows that natural
selection as a biological process works."

- David M. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and
Palaeontology," Field Museum of Natural History
Bulletin, pp. 22, 25, Chicago, January 1979.

We must distinguish between the fact of evolution --
defined as change in organisms over time -- and the
explanation of this change. Darwin's contribution, through
his theory of natural selection, was to suggest how the
evolutionary change took place. The evidence we find in the
geologic record is not nearly as compatible with darwinian
natural selection as we would like it to be.

Note that Raup believes that evolution has occurred; he
calls evolution a "fact". And on page 25 he writes:

What appeared to be a nice progression when relatively
few data were available now appears to be much more complex
and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not
been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a
record which does show change but one which can
hardly be look upon as the most reasonable consequence of
natural selection. [Emphasis in original]

And later on the same page:

So natural selection as a process is okay. We are also
pretty sure that it goes on in nature although good
examples are surprisingly rare.

It should be obvious by now that what Raup is arguing
against is not evolution, but gradual evolution in
all cases.

- Jon (Augray) Barber

Quote #26

"A major problem in proving the theory (of evolution)
has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished
species preserved in the Earth's geological formations.
This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's
hypothetical intermediate variants instead species appear
and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the
creationist argument that each species was created by God."
(Czarnecki, Mark, "The Revival of the Creationist Crusade",
MacLean's, January 19, 1981, p. 56)

Is [the quote-miner] Canadian? This quote is from a
Canadian newsmagazine, and would be relatively obscure
outside of Canada. The quote has clipped off part of the
last sentence, and some of the punctuation has changed:

A major problem in proving the
theory has been the "fossil
record," the imprints of vanished
species preserved in the Earth's geological formations.
This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's
hypothetical intermediate variants - instead, species
appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled
the creationist argument that each species was created by
God as described in the Bible.

Once again, this seems to be a glossing over of the
controversy surrounding Punctuated Equilibrium. Given that
many in the news media seem to have a superficial
understanding of science, I'm not inclined to take the
technical aspects of a news article about the
evolution-creation controversy seriously, especially when I
see a gem like this:

Essentially, Darwin stated that a species evolved by the
random mutation of genes, which then produced variants of
the original species.

The claim that Darwin knew about genes and mutation is
news to me, as I'm sure it is to a lot of people. But
Czarnecki does raise an interesting point. Discussing how
some people view the difference between fact and theory, he
writes:

Such a pedagogical approach, though initiated with the
best of intentions, strips the corpus of scientific
knowledge down to certain facts that can be perceived by
the five senses with the aid of technology; everything else
is factually suspect because it cannot be directly
"observed" - so much for paleontology (fossil study) and
all of nuclear physics.

And a few sentences later:

What about history? Past events cannot be observed,
records of them are just fallible memories, words - just
like the Bible, in fact.

- Jon (Augray) Barber

Quote #27

"Eldredge and Gould, by contrast, decided to take the
record at face value. On this view, there is little
evidence of modification within species, or of forms
intermediate between species because neither generally
occurred. A species forms and evolves almost
instantaneously (on the geological timescale) and then
remains virtually unchanged until it disappears, yielding
its habitat to a new species." (Smith, Peter J.,
"Evolution's Most Worrisome Questions," Review of
Life Pulse by Niles Eldredge, New
Scientist, 1987, p. 59)

First of all, a complaint. "New Scientist" magazine is a
weekly, so there are about 50 issues to check
through, to find "page 59". I found this particular one in
the 19 November 1987 issue (volume 116, number 1587).

It is a review by Peter J. Smith of Niles Eldredge's
"Life Pulse." It seems to be an accurate quotation. Perhaps
I should also note this additional sentence from the
review:

"Using examples from throughout the fossil record, both
marine and continental, Eldredge thus demonstrates
convincingly that extinction is the motor of species
evolution, and that, without it, there could be no
development."

- Tom (TomS) Scharle

[Commenting on the above.]

Again, though, this is a discussion of Punctuated
Equilibrium and Eldredge's contention that speciation
occurs "quickly" (in geologic terms) in small populations
and that, if that is true, we would expect examples of
"modification within species, or of forms intermediate
between species" to be rare. Both he and Gould have noted,
however, that they are not completely lacking and that
examples of transitionals between higher taxonomic groups
are even more common.

- J. (catshark) Pieret

Quote #28

"The principle problem is morphological stasis. A theory
is only as good as its predictions, and conventional
neo-Darwinism, which claims to be a comprehensive
explanation of evolutionary process, has failed to predict
the widespread long-term morphological stasis now
recognized as one of the most striking aspects of the
fossil record." (Williamson, Peter G., "Morphological
Stasis and Developmental Constraint: Real Problems for
Neo-Darwinism," Nature, Vol. 294, 19 November
1981, p. 214)

Here Williamson reiterates and clarifies the points he
was making in the paper quote mined in #55 (Williamson, P.G., Palaeontological
Documentation of Speciation in Cenozoic Molluscs from
Turkana Basin), once again discussing Punctuated
Equilibrium.

And he writes:

But punctuated equilibrium is compatible with much
current neo-Darwinian thought.

And later on:

The principal argument in my paper is that when
speciation events occur in the Turkana Basin mollusc
sequence, they are invariably accompanied by major
developmental instability...

So we can see that Williamson isn't criticizing
evolution, or all of neo-Darwinism, but one aspect of it,
namely gradualism.

- Jon (Augray) Barber

Quote #29

"It is a simple ineluctable truth that virtually all
members of a biota remain basically stable, with minor
fluctuations, throughout their duration..." (Eldredge,
Niles, The Pattern of Evolution, 1998, p.
157)

From Chapter 6, section titled "Enter Evolution"

"There are clear connections between these varying
ecological patterns of resiliency, from the smallest scale
of the individual organism, through ecological succession,
to the even larger scale of habitat tracking. Individual
organisms and, in the later two cases, entire species tend
to survive by moving around, sending out propagules to
rebuild ecosystems, whether locally degraded
(Cercopia on El Yunque) or regionally revamped (as
when glaciers slowly move south from the arctic). But
evolution is classically about change. So far, local
and regional patterns of ecological resiliency imply
stability of individual species lineages, not evolutionary
change. Where and how does real evolution come into the
picture?

"Consider the effect of Hurricane Hugo on El Yunque, and
on the entire island of Puerto Rico, for that matter. Prior
to Hugo's hit in 1989, the endemic Puerto Rican parrot had
been reduced to fewer than 100 known individuals living in
the Loquillo Mountains, of which El Yunque is one.
Agriculture and urbanization had already transformed so
much of this bird species' habitat that it was on the verge
of extinction. Hugo took about 50 percent of the remaining
birds. Though the population has since recovered to
approximately pre-Hugo proportions, and is now being
augmented by a captive breeding program, Hugo might very
well have done away with these beautiful animals
entirely.

"In other words, physically induced ecological calamity,
if great enough in a real scope and intensity, can drive
all the populations of a species extinct. Indeed, it
can drive many different species extinct all at the
same time. And that's exactly what we paleontologists see
in the fossil record as the dominant pattern, not only of
extinction, but of evolution as well.

"It is not just single species that are in stasis.
Virtually all the component species of regional ecosystems
are evolutionarily stable, often for millions of years. Of
course, that's only half the pattern. Periodically, the
majority of those species disappear, to be replaced, in due
course, by others. One way of looking at this pattern is to
see it as the ecological generalization of stasis and
change that underlies the notion of punctuated equilibria.
It is a simple ineluctable truth that
virtually all members of a biota remain basically stable,
with minor fluctuations, throughout their durations.
(Remember, by "biota" we mean the commonly preserved plants
and animals of a particular geological interval, which
occupy regions often as large as Roger Tory Patterson's
"eastern" region of North American birds.) And when these
systems change -- when the older species disappear, and new
ones take their place -- the change happens relatively
abruptly and in lockstep fashion. It affects most of the
species in a region more or less at the same time.
Evolution goes hand in hand with the degradation and
rebuilding of ecosystems, and the origin of new species
depends in large measure on the extinction of older
species. [Eldredge, Niles 1999 The Pattern of
Evolution W. H. Freeman and company, New York. Page
157-158.] [Emphasis in original.]

The section is about the ways in which biotic
communities are stable, co-adapted, integrated systems, and
that evolution is mainly a result of "turnover pulses" and
coordinated stasis.

- Floyd

Quote #30

"But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of
their history and the record fails to contain a single
example of a significant transition." (Woodroff, D.S.,
Science, vol. 208, 1980, p. 716)

This is a review of Steven Stanley's book
Macroevolution.

"Darwin and most subsequent authors including G. G.
Simpson have held that most evolutionary transitions occur
within established lineages by phyletic gradualism guided
by natural selection. But fossil
species remain unchanged thoughout most of their history
and the record fails to contain a single example of a
significant transition. Similarly, it is difficult to
account for the greatly accelerated pace of evolution
during periods of adaptive radiation. An alternative model
of evolution, that of punctuated equilibria, introduced by
Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould in the early 1970s,
more fully accounts for these same observations."

- Mike Dunford

Sigh, yet another [punctuated equilibria] supportive
quote taken out of context to fool people who don't know
that there are varying "camps" as to evolution's actual
mechanism. In case you haven't already guessed, that's what
this quote is. The author is reminding that
gradualist hypotheses for the mechanism of evolution
have a hard time explaining the fossil record, while
punctuated equilibrium hypotheses on evolutionary
mechanisms make much more sense in light of the same fossil
record.

This article is actually not a scientific paper in
itself but rather a review by Woodroff of Steven Stanley's
"Macroevolution. Pattern and Process" Freeman S.F. 1979
xii, 332 pp illus. $20 (wasn't it cool when you could get a
book like this for $20.00?)

The first sentences of this article reads thus (brackets
mine):

"Macroevolution [the book] is concerned
with the origin and extinction of species and the
diversification of lineages, or, turning the problem around
with how key morphological and functional features of a
lineage evolve. One of the major debates in biology
concerns the role of micro-evolutionary forces (natural
selection, genetic drift and mutation) at the trans-species
level. Are the major changes in the history of life
attributable to speciation or to the gradual transformation
of lineages within established species by microevolutionary
forces?"

I'd like to note that this book review is a contemporary
of some of Gould's articles on the same note: that
paleontology was undergoing an exciting new time and
scientific rigor was being re-injected into the
discipline.

Woodroff goes on to describe Stanley's contributions to
biology, and the wealth of analyses Stanley includes within
the volume, including "well-illustrated data on rates of
speciation, extinction, and the diversification of higher
taxonomic categories." He goes through the average duration
of the various species in various groups, and the various
speeds at which diversification occurs. The problem of the
varying speed by which species diversification appears in
the fossil record is addressed as:

"This inconsistency has created a major problem for
evolutionary biologists. Darwin and most subsequent authors
including G.G. Simpson have held that most evolutionary
transitions occur within established lineages by phyletic
gradualism guided by natural selection. But fossil species remain unchanged
throughout most of their history and the record fails to
contain a single example of a significant transition.
Similarly, it is difficult to account for the greatly
accelerated pace of evolution during periods of adaptive
radiation. An alternative model of evolution, introduced by
Niles Eldredge and Stephan Jay Gould in the early 1970's,
more fully accounts for these same observations. According
to this major conceptual breakthrough, rapid evolution is
typically associated with speciation events that occur
cryptically in small isolated populations, often at the
edge of a species's geographic range." (Woodroff, D.S.,
Science (208) 1980 716-717).

Clearly the authors intended the reader to note the
weakness in gradualism, not to doubt the fact that the
fossil record supports evolutionary theory, as the little
quote nugget at the top of this record seems to imply.

- Deanne (Lilith) Taylor

Quote #31

"We have long known about stasis and abrupt appearance,
but have chosen to fob it off upon an imperfect fossil
record." (Gould, Stephen J., "The Paradox of the First
Tier: An Agenda for Paleobiology,"
Paleobiology, 1985, p. 7)

This is a truly disgusting misquote that goes so far to
allow me to call it, against my usual cautionary nature, "a
creationist lie". It is implying sloppy scientific methods
when the true quote has only a superficial resemblance to
the word and none to the meaning.

It is a complete fabrication of the original
sentence by the source which was:

"Just as we have long known about
stasis and abrupt appearance, but have chosen to fob it off
up on an imperfect fossil record, so too have we long
recognized the rapid, if not sudden, turnover of faunas in
episodes of mass extinction."

I truly enjoyed reading the article cited here, too, and
it's worthy of a few discussions on its entire merit. But
as I am obliged to give the full context of the "quote
nugget", knowing it's my scholarly duty, let's go to
it...

We must first start with the abstract. Gould presents
the basics of his argument within the article's abstract,
which is very important to read in this context. Here is
quoted the entire abstract on page 2:

"Nature's discontinuities occur both in the hierarchical
structuring of genological individuals and in the distinct
processes operating at different scales of time, here
called tiers. Conventional evolutionary theory denies this
structuring and attempts to render the larger scales at
simple extrapolation from (or reduction to) the familiar
and immediate -- the struggle among organisms at ecological
moments (conventional individuals at the first tier). I
propose that we consider distinct processes at three
separable tiers of time: ecological moments, normal
genological time (trends during millions of years) and
periodic mass extinctions.

"I designate as "the paradox of the first tier" our
failure to find progress in life's history, when
conventional theory (first tier processes acting on
organisms) expects it as a consequence of competition under
Darwin's metaphor of the wedge. I suggest a resolution of
the paradox: whatever accumulates at the first tier is
sufficiently reversed, undone, or overridden by processes
of the higher tiers. In particular, punctuated equilibrium
at the second tier produces trends for suites of reasons
unrelated to the adaptive benefits of organisms
(conventional progress). Mass extinction at the third tier,
a recurring process now recognized as a more frequent, more
rapid, more intense and more different than we had
imagined, works by different rules and may undo whatever
the lower tiers had accumulated." (Gould, Stephen J., "The
Paradox of the First Tier: An Agenda for Paleobiology,"
Paleobiology 11(1) 1985, pp 2-12)

Now, to set the context of the "quote nugget" cited at
the top of this section, it is in the light of the
discussion on the "third tier". Note how Gould is
criticizing other aspects of his field in its conclusions
and methods, a habit that is typical of most
critically-thinking scientists and is a necessary and
prevalent method of discourse in science. Context given
below.

"IV. Establishment of the Independence of the Third
Tier.

As ideas whose time may have come, mass extinction
shares an interesting property with punctuated equilibrium.
Neither represents a new discovery; both involve the
reluctant acceptance of an acknowledged literal pattern
that deep biases of Western thought had led us to mitigate
or deny. Just as we have long known
about stasis and abrupt appearance, but have chose to fob
it off upon an imperfect fossil record, so too have we
long recognized the rapid, if not sudden, turnover of
faunas in episodes of mass extinction. We have based our
geological alphabet, the time scale, upon these faunal
replacements. Yet we have chosen to blunt or mitigate the
rapidity and extent of extinctions with two habits of
argument rooted in uniformitarian commitments. First, we
have deemphasized some extinctions by drawing dubious
phyletic connections across the boundaries. Second, and
more important, we have tried to distribute these events
more evenly in time by seeking evidence for slow declines
before boundaries and reduced peaks of extinction at the
terminations themselves. In short, we have tried to place
mass extinctions into continuity with the rest of life's
history by viewing them as only quantitatively different --
more and quicker of the same -- rather than qualitatively
distinct in both rate and effect."

In other words, Gould is arguing for the need to treat
mass extinctions as separate phenomena in themselves.

I would also like to add that in the previous section
within this same paper, on the subject of the "Second
Tier", Gould was making the case for the mechanism of
punctuated equilibrium, where he showed that gradualism
does not explain the stasis and abrupt appearance in the
fossil record, which is in context with the work itself.
Again, this section's particular misquote takes advantage
of the discussion of the merits of [punctuated equilibrium]
over gradualism. The misquoted phrase is reminding the
reader that before the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium
was proposed in the early 70's, evolution was thought to
operate as gradualism and the discontinuous fossil record
was, as Gould said, excused as merely incomplete.

What makes this particular misquote even more egregious
is that they didn't just take Gould out of context, but
they engineered what he said in the first place. This
misquote supports the creationist claims of scientific
uber-conspiracies in favor of evolution, as if scientists
deliberately ignore the fossil evidence and pass it off
without debating it, which is hardly the case. Science
demands that evidence be examined, critiqued, and debated,
and this is what Gould is doing in this very paper, with
the presentation of his case on the subject of hierarchical
arrangements of mass extinctions in relation to other
evolutionary changes!

What does Gould's good criticism and scholarship have to
do with the implied-sloppy-scientific-method-mangled quote
nugget above?

Absolutely nothing.

- Deanne (Lilith) Taylor

Quote #32

"Paleontologists ever since Darwin have been searching
(largely in vain) for the sequences of insensibly graded
series of fossils that would stand as examples of the sort
of wholesale transformation of species that Darwin
envisioned as the natural product of the evolutionary
process. Few saw any reason to demur - though it is a
startling fact that ...most species remain recognizably
themselves, virtually unchanged throughout their occurrence
in geological sediments of various ages." (Eldredge, Niles,
"Progress in Evolution?" New Scientist, vol.
110, 1986, p. 55)

At least this one gives a volume number. It is from the
issue of 5 June 1986 (volume 110, number 1511), pages
54-57.

To fill in the ellipsis:

" -- though it is a startling fact
that, of the half dozen reviews of the On the
Origins of Species written by paleontologists that I
have seen, all take Darwin to task for failing to recognize
that most species remain recognizably
themselves, virtually unchanged throughout their occurrence
in geological sediments of various ages."

The sub-heading of this article (presumably written by
the editor?) summarizes the article as:

"Darwin was right to regard natural selection as the
only rational explanation for the design we see in nature.
But he was wrong to abandon the notion of species as real
entities."

- Tom (TomS) Scharle

[Commenting on the above.]

As is the case with most, if not all, of the quotes
taken from Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, this
passage involves their idea of Punctuated Equilibrium,
which postulates that speciation occurs "quickly" (in
geologic terms) in small isolated parts of the whole
population. If that is true, we would expect examples of
modification within species to be rare in the fossil
record. Eldredge appears to be chiding paleontologists in
the past for having noted, on the one hand, that the finely
graded changes, that should have been evident if Darwin's
was right that speciation occurred through slow change
throughout the entire population, were missing, but
failing, on the other hand, to challenge Darwin's idea of
how speciation occurs. It is, again, an attempt to use a
debate between scientists on a technical issue to unfairly
portray the state of the evidence for evolution.

- J. (catshark) Pieret

Quote #33

"In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes
did not match the pattern of fossils that they were
supposed to have generated, the pattern was judged to be
'wrong.' A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil
record in terms of a particular theory of evolution,
inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the
theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it? ...As is now well
known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the
record, persist for some millions of years virtually
unchanged, only to disappear abruptly - the 'punctuated
equilibrium' pattern of Eldredge and Gould." (Kemp, Tom S.,
"A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New
Scientist, vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67)

In the paragraph this quote is taken from, Kemp is
criticizing the claim that the fossil record is incomplete
because it does not support gradualism. But the full quote
is more illuminating:

The fact that the fossil data did not, on the whole,
seem to fit this prevailing model of the process of
evolution - for example, in the absence of intermediate
forms and of gradually changing lineages over millions of
years - was readily explained by the notorious
incompleteness of the fossil record. In other words, when the assumed
evolutionary processes did not match the pattern of fossils
that they were supposed to have generated, the pattern was
judged to be "wrong". A circular argument arises: interpret
the fossil record in terms of a particular theory of
evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it
confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?

Spearheaded by this extraordinary journal, palaeontology
is now looking at what it actually finds, not what it is
told that it is supposed to find. As
is now well known, most fossil species appear
instantaneously in the record, persist for some millions of
years virtually unchanged, only to disappear abruptly - the
"punctuated equilibrium" pattern of Eldredge and
Gould. Irrespective of one's view of the biological
causes of such a pattern (and there continues to be much
debate about this), it leads in practice to description of
long-term evolution, or macroevolution, in terms of the
differential survival, extinction and proliferation of
species. The species is the unit of evolution.

Note that Kemp states that the fossil record "leads in
practice to description of long-term evolution..."

- Jon (Augray) Barber

[Editor's note: In addition to being used to claim that "Sudden Appearance
and Stasis" in the fossil record is an artifact of special creation, this quote
mine is also used to "support" claims that geology has to assume evolution in
order to derive dates from the fossil sequence, while the sequence is used as
evidence of evolution, resulting in faulty circular reasoning.]

Notice that this particular quote mine is frequently grouped together with
another:

And this poses something of a problem: If we date the rocks by their fossils,
how can we then turn around and talk about patterns of evolutionary change
through time in the fossil record?" - Niles Eldredge in
Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of
Punctuated Equilibria, pp. 51, 52, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985)

By taking these out of context, it is made to superficially appear that they
support the creationist claims of circuity of reasoning in that fossils date
rocks which date fossils which date rock, etc. Henry Morris in
"The Vanishing
Case for Evolution" (Impact 156) explicitly claims that this
quote is about such circular reasoning. Under the heading
"No Order in the Fossils," Morris claims:

Not only are there no true transitional forms in the fossils;
there is not even any general evidence of evolutionary progression in the
actual fossil sequences (two quotes omitted). The superficial appearance of
an evolutionary pattern in the fossil record has actually been imposed on it
by the fact that the rocks containing the fossils have themselves been "dated"
by their fossils.

That is followed by the two above quotes. The quote from Eldredge is not
about dating and is flagrantly out of context
(See Quote #3.6). The
quote by Kemp is also out of context and, what is worse, it is not even about
dating of fossils or geologic strata. The issue of the age of either the
fossils or the rocks which contain them is not in any way addressed in this
short article from the "Forum" section of the magazine.

What is being discussed are issues of the tempo and mode of evolution: how
evolution proceeds and at what pace, not when the fossilized organisms
lived. In other words this is really a punctuated equilibria quote. It is not
unusual for those advocating new paradigms to think of themselves as the ones
who finally bothered to pay attention to the evidence. Dr. Kemp is a
supporter of punctuated equilibria which in 1985 was still a relatively new
paradigm for paleontology.

The journal Paleobiology is 10 years old, and has
celebrated the anniversary with a special number (vol. 11, no 1) devoted to a
collection of invited reviews of the leading topics in paleobiological research.
As the editors say, justifiably if a trifle immodestly, "the wealth and quality
of innovative and provocative scientific papers that have appeared in
Paleobiology over the past 10 years have provided a de facto
definition for both its subject area and its mission.

And what exactly is that mission? Briefly, it seems to me, to propagate the
view the fossils provide information about evolution that can be used to
generate and test theory. That statement may appear obvious: after all, it is
roughly what all sciences are supposed to do, and palaeontology has always been
accepted as a science. But it actually represents something of a conceptual
revolution in the subject.

Before the early 1970s, most paleontologists interpreted their fossil record
in the light of the prevailing view of how evolution works, the NeoDarwinian,
or synthetic theory. Thus, they attributed differences in the fossils found at
different points in geologic time to natural selection acting on individual
organism, causing a gradual evolutionary change in a more or less continuous
fashion. Species became extinct, they said, because of competition from other,
better adopted species. Even whole taxonomic groups competed with one another,
to the advantage of some and the demise of others. New species arose by gradual
transformation of a species, largely in response to environmental changes. Even
mass extinctions resulted from a simple loss of fitness following a change in
the environment.

And so on. He also explicitly discusses the "'punctuated equilibrium' pattern
of Eldredge and Gould." Dr. Kemp is concerned that those who dig fossils use
those fossils to discover what really happened and not impose on those fossils
what theorists expect of those fossils. And he sees the journal
Paleobiology
as a place for scientists to tell what the fossils say.

. . . But the observed pattern of the fossils, as evidence of
what really happened, must be as necessary a part of testing hypotheses about
the evolutionary process as any amount of genetic and ecological knowledge about
living organisms.

- Mike Hopkins

Quote #34

"The old Darwinian view of evolution as a ladder of more
and more efficient forms leading up to the present is not
borne out by the evidence. Most changes are random rather
than systematic modifications, until species drop out.
There is no sign of directed order here. Trends do occur in
many lines, but they are not the rule." (Newell, N. D.,
"Systematics and Evolution," 1984, p. 10)

Let it be noted that almost everybody says this is true.
But Darwinism never did require "more and more
efficient forms", right from the get-go. That was
Lamarck's theory.

- John Wilkins

Quote #35

"Well-represented species are usually stable throughout
their temporal range, or alter so little and in such
superficial ways (usually in size alone), that an
extrapolation of observed change into longer periods of
geological time could not possibly yield the extensive
modifications that mark general pathways of evolution in
larger groups. Most of the time, when the evidence is best,
nothing much happens to most species." (Gould Stephen J.,
"Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness," Natural
History, 1988, p. 14)

First, some context:

"Many people think that fossils, almost by definition,
are rare and precious. (Some are, of course . . .) . . .
But most ordinary fossils . . . are . . . abundant parts of
their geological strata. . . The fossils are beautiful, and
they are tempting. But they are also plentiful. . . .

Then the quote with the unmarked deletion restored and
the following paragraph in its entirely:

"This extraordinary abundance of some fossils
illustrates something important about the history of life.
Evolution is a theory about change through time -- "descent
with modification," in Darwin's words. Yet when fossils are
most abundant during substantial stretches of time, well-represented species are usually
stable throughout their temporal range or alter so little
and in such superficial ways (usually in size alone) that
an extrapolation of observed change into longer periods of
geological time could not possibly yield the extensive
modifications that mark general pathways of evolution in
larger groups. Most of the time, when the evidence is best,
nothing much happens to most species.

Niles Eldredge and I have tried to resolve this paradox
with our theory of punctuated equilibrium. We hold that
most evolution is concentrated in events of speciation, the
separation and splitting off of an isolated population from
a persisting ancestral stock. These events of splitting are
glacially slow when measured on the scale of a human life
-- usually thousands of years. But slow in our terms can be
instantaneous in geological perspective. A thousand years
is one-tenth of one percent of a million years, and a
million years is a good deal less than average for the
duration of most fossil species. Thus, if species tend to
arise in a few thousand years and then persist unchanged
for more than a million, we will rarely find evidence for
their momentary origin, and our fossil record will tap only
the long periods of prosperity and stability. Since fossil
deposits of overwhelming abundance record such periods of
success for widespread species living in stasis, we can
resolve the apparent paradox that when fossils are most
common, evolution is most rarely observed."

Even if the quote-miner disagrees with Gould's and
Eldredge's explanation for the state of the fossil record,
to edit what they wrote to make it appear that they have no
explanation is deeply dishonest.

- J. (catshark) Pieret

Quote #36

"Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during
their lengthy geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged
by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly
because prevailing theory treated stasis as uninteresting
nonevidence for nonevolution. ...The overwhelming
prevalence of stasis became an embarrassing feature of the
fossil record, best left ignored as a manifestation of
nothing (that is, nonevolution). (Gould, Stephen J.,
"Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, 1993,
p. 15)

First of all, a more accessible source for this quote
is: Gould, Stephen J. 1995. "Cordelia's Dilemma",
Dinosaur in a Haystack. New York: Harmony
Books, p. 127-128.

Note that the above starts with the unmarked deletion of
"Before Niles Eldredge and I proposed the theory of
punctuated equilibrium in 1972, the . . .".

The very next paragraph is, in its entirely:

"But Eldredge and I proposed that stasis should be an
expected and interesting norm (not an embarrassing failure
to detect change), and that evolution should be
concentrated in brief episodes of branching speciation.
Under our theory, stasis became interesting and worthy of
documentation -- as a norm disrupted by rare events of
change. We took as the motto of punctuated equilibrium:
"Stasis is data." (One might quibble about the grammar, but
I think we won the conceptual battle.) Punctuated
equilibrium is still a subject of lively debate, and some
(or most) of its claims may end up on the ash heap of
history, but I take pride in one success relevant to
Cordelia's dilemma: our theory has brought stasis out of
the conceptual closet. Twenty-five years ago, stasis was a
non-subject -- a "nothing" under prevailing theory. No one
would have published, or even proposed, an active study of
lineages known not to change. Now such studies are
routinely pursued and published, and a burgeoning
literature has documented the character and extent of
stasis in quantitative terms.

This is yet another example of creationists
misconstruing a debate among scientists (once again, about
Punctuated Equilibria) as something more. Quite simply,
Gould is chiding scientists for a misinterpretation of the
fossil record bearing on the tempo and mode of evolution,
not the fact that it occurred. If they really had an
argument that the peculiarity of the fossil record that
Gould is describing is evidence against the fact of
evolution, then they should make the argument openly, so it
and its ramifications could be tested, instead of trying to
hijack the words of real scientists. But blowing smoke is
so much easier.

- J. (catshark) Pieret

Quote #37

"Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected
changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through
the rock record. ...That individual kinds of fossils remain
recognizably the same throughout the length of their
occurrence in the fossil record had been known to
paleontologists long before Darwin published his
Origin. Darwin himself, ...prophesied that
future generations of paleontologists would fill in these
gaps by diligent search ...One hundred and twenty years of
paleontological research later, it has become abundantly
clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of
Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor
record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction
is wrong. ...The observation that species are amazingly
conservative and static entities throughout long periods of
time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes:
everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it.
Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record
obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern,
simply looked the other way." (Eldredge, N. and Tattersall,
I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p.
45-46)

In the passages quoted, Eldredge and Tattersall are
discussing the merits of gradualism, something the quote
miner has left out, as we can see:

The main impetus for expanding the view that species are
discrete at any one point in time, to embrace their entire
history, comes from the fossil record. Paleontologists just were not seeing the
expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up
through the rock record. Instead, collections of
nearly identical specimens, separated in some cases by 5
million years, suggested that the overwhelming majority of
animal and plant species were tremendously conservative
throughout their histories.

That individual kinds of fossils
remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their
occurrence in the fossil record had been known to
paleontologists long before Darwin published his
Origin. Darwin himself, troubled by the
stubbornness of the fossil record in refusing to yield
abundant examples of gradual change, devoted two chapters
to the fossil record. To preserve his argument he was
forced to assert that the fossil record was too incomplete,
to full of gaps, to produce the expected patterns of
change. He prophesied that future
generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by
diligent search and then his major thesis - that
evolutionary change is gradual and progressive - would be
vindicated. One hundred and twenty
years of paleontological research later, it has become
abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm
this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a
miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that
this prediction is wrong.

The observation that species are
amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long
periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new
clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it.
Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record
obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern,
simply looked the other way. Rather than challenge
well-entrenched evolutionary theory, paleontologists
tacitly agreed with their zoological colleagues that the
fossil record was too poor to do much beyond supporting, in
a general sort of way, the basic thesis that life had
evolved.